Nigeria’s Indorama restarts loading urea export cargoes

LONDON (ICIS)–In Nigeria, Indonesia-based Indorama Eleme Fertilizer & Chemicals Ltd (IEFCL) restarted loading granular urea cargoes earlier this month, a company official told ICIS today.

A 30,000-tonne granular urea cargo for trader Nitron, which has been pending shipment since August, loaded in the first week of October for Brazil, while Ameropa will load a cargo for Latin America this week, the official said. Both cargoes were expected to load in August.

Indorama halted loadings between August and September following protests from locals who cited a shortage of urea in the domestic market. The government has now approved exports as the domestic season ended in September.

The sales to Nitron and Ameropa were made on a spot basis.

Indorama will also load its first contract cargo for offtake customer Trammo in the last week of October, while Helm will load its cargo in early November. Both Trammo and Helm have offtake agreements with Indorama for around 400,000 tonnes/year.

For November shipment, Indorama is heard to be offering spot cargoes in the $206-208/tonne FOB (free on board) range.

Indorama started urea production at its 1.4m tonne/year plant on 16 May 2016 and currently has stocks of over 80,000 tonnes.

Its plant is operating at full rate and producing 3,900 tonnes/day of urea, said the official.

On Thursday, Dubai-based investor, The Abraaj Group announced the purchase of a minority stake in Indorama. Financial details were not disclosed.